The Maze Runner hit theaters this past week, and it turned out to be the rare YA adaptation that actually held our interest. But when we tried to come up with some clever feature to tie in with its release, we drew a blank. The more we thought about it, the more frustrated we became, and the more frustrated we became, the closer we inched to just throwing up our hands and exclaiming, “$#@%!”

Say, wait a minute…

See, The Maze Runner follows in a fine, upstanding tradition of many a creative universe to come before: making its own profanity. Because while science fiction teaches us that there may be no limits to how wondrous or strange our future may be, George Carlin teaches us that there are some things you just can’t say on television, or in polite company. Sci-fi creators have been skirting this issue for decades by conjuring up their own off-color vocabularies for the worlds of their imagination. Here at GFR, we think Deadwood is about as quotable as it gets, so in a spirit of shucking solidarity, we decided to embrace our inner ten-year-olds and look back at some of our favorite sci-fi swear words. First up, the movie that inspired the whole frelling article…

Sly Stallone and damn near every other aging action star on the planet took to the big screen again this past weekend in The Expendables 3. We can take that franchise or leave it, but we do have to admit we love the concept of uniting a team of utter badasses from assorted franchises we know and love (or love to hate). So let’s eject Stallone, Statham, and the rest and instead assemble the ultimate Sci-Fi Expendables team, the first and only people you need to call if you need some dirty deeds done right (but not dirt cheap). The GFR team put our heads together to figure out who should make the team, and after some arguing, a lot of swearing, and one really undignified slap-fight, we came up with 16 candidates…the same number of folks on the Expendables 3 poster. Here’s who made the cut.

Sarah Connor
When you first met Sarah Connor, she was a meek, mild-mannered waitress just sort of floating aimlessly through her life. Encounters with a vicious, single-minded cyborg from the future, sent back to hunt you down so your son is never born, have a way of changing that. Over the course of the first two movies in the Terminator movies, Sarah transforms into a serious action star, teaching herself all manner of combat and survival skills, actively seeking out any and all knowledge that might help her in her one-woman war against Cyberdyne Systems and a future ruled by human-hunting machines. Basically, she’s a perfect addition to your team of mercs, and will always be working to improve her already ample skill set and add to the team.

Today we’ve all hopefully been spending time with our fathers, or at least with our fond memories of them. Given how much of an impact our fathers have on our lives — even if only by their absence — there’s no surprise that daddy issues extend all the way to the final frontier. So, in honor of Father’s Day, we decided to take a closer look at some of science fiction’s most memorable dads, and the ways their teachings and legacies shaped their children.

As the bar against all others will be measured, we decided on a duo that represent both sides of the old “nature vs. nurture” debate: the Kryptonian Jor-El and the Kansan Jonathan Kent. Jor-El gave Kal-El the genetic potential to do great things, and his final acts were to ensure his son’s survival even as his planet died. On the other hand, Jonathan Kent (along with Martha, of course) helped shape Clark into a true hero worthy of the name Superman. So, with Jor-El and Jonathan serving as two sides of our paternal ideal, here are our picks…

Easter weekend is all about death and resurrection for the Christians of the world, but even the secular Farscape fans had something to celebrate this past weekend. While doing a panel at Wondercon in Anaheim, creator Rockne S. O’Bannon said that a Farscape spinoff movie is indeed in the works. That confirmed rumors from earlier this year, when writer Justin Monjo revealed that he was writing a script for a Farscape movie. A smaller but important element is that it sounds like the events of the Farscape movie will follow those of the BOOM! Studios comics, with the movie picking up many years later, with John and Aeryn’s son D’Argo now 19 years old and all three living in hiding on Earth.

Both O’Bannon and Farscape novelist Keith R. A. DeCandido handled the writing duties on the comics, so it’s no surprise that they’ve got the official stamp as “canon.” However, we realize not every Farscape fan is a comic book fan. Maybe you just want the Cliffs Notes version without having to read through the Farscape comic series and its various spin-offs and tie-ins. Well don’t worry, ‘scapers, we’ve got your back. Here’s everything you need to know about the comics before eventually diving into the newly announced movie.

While it might not have demonstrated as many lives as Futurama — not yet, at least — Farscape has definitely proven itself to be a hardier show than any of us could have guessed. Although the show was contracted to run five seasons on what was then still the Sci-Fi Channel, the network canceled it at the end of the fourth — leaving the show on a horribly cruel cliffhanger episode that bore the all too apt title of “Bad Timing.” Thankfully, the weeping, wailing, and blind rage of the fans earned the show a coda: the 2004 miniseries Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, which gave the story a proper (albeit occasionally tragic) wrap-up. And while it was awesome to see the show get a worthy ending, it was still sad to admit that the miniseries would likely be the last we’d see of Farscape on our screens. But, to borrow a quote from a different space franchise: never tell me the odds. It turns out the rumors are true: a Farscape movie is indeed in the works.

One of the best science fiction series ever made just celebrated its 15th anniversary. Farscape originally premiered on March 19, 1999, on what was still called the Sci-Fi Channel at that point. With a motley crew of crazy characters, Muppet aliens, and a twisted sense of humor that often counterbalanced very dark storylines, Farscape was unlike anything we’d seen on television. And in spite of an unexpected cancellation that looked like it’d leave fans in the lurch, the show managed to get a second chance at closure in the form of the 2004 Peacekeeper Wars miniseries.

All these years later, comes the word that maybe, just maybe, we might get a new Farscape TV movie. And I hope so, because that would be awesome. But what you might not realize is that Crichton, Aeryn, Jothee, Chiana, and the rest actually didn’t just settle into a quiet retirement after The Peacekeeper Wars. I mean, they totally intended to — they’d earned their happy ending — but the story of Farscape actually picked up again in 2008, courtesy of comics from BOOM! Studios. Show creator Rockne S. O’Bannon worked with Farscape novelist Keith R.A. DeCandido to plot out the Moya crew’s further adventures through the Uncharted Territories, and the comics are considered official canon by the Jim Henson Company. So if we really might get a new Farscape movie at some point, now is the perfect time to catch up on where the story went after the Peacekeeper Wars reached their climactic end.